Time Warner Cable Reaches Deal With Disney, Customers To Get ESPN 3 Access

On the last day of the NFL pre-season, football fans are rejoicing — or at least the ones who subscribe to Time Warner Cable. The company has finally reached an agreement with Walt Disney Co. that will keep Disney-owned channels like ESPN from being blacked out during the first week of the the NCAA and NFL seasons. And TWC customers will now have access to ESPN’s online video portal ESPN3.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement without any interruption in service,” said Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Disney negotiated a carriage fee increase of around $.40-.50 per subscriber just for the right to carry ABC. In return, TWC won the rights to sell some ABC shows on its video-on-demand platform, much like the deal ABC made with Apple for the new AppleTV.

The deal also gives TWC cable customers — regardless of whether or not they use TWC to access the internet — free access to ESPN3.com. The cable company had been a holdout in offering this service because Disney charges cable providers, rather than end users, for its use.

As a TWC customer I constantly see the “Roll over or get tough” ads TWC parades around during commercial breaks. So I got curious and went to the website and found it was mere propaganda as to why they refused to give in, rather than a serious logical debate (yeah, shame on me, I know) For those of you that don’t know what I mean here is a decent article written last year, when TWC first rolled out the ‘ROoGT’ campaign –

But the TWC angle was selling their customers is this – Disney is the bad guys that want to charge you more money. We are the good guys and simply don’t want them to do that so we are threatening to allow them to blackout channels if they won’t deal.

And as it turns out TWC DID deal – only to allow Disney to charge the customer more AND have the right to sell ABC material on-demand. So customers went from having a champion of the people to getting screwed TWICE. On top of all that it looks like the REAL holdout was over TWC not wanting to get get charged for allowing customers free access to ESPN3.com! Ugh.

“How to Get Access to ESPN3.com
ESPN3.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN3.com affiliated internet service provider. ESPN3.com is also available to fans that access the internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases.

Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Hereâ€™s how you can get access to ESPN3.com.

Please select your internet service provider from the list. If you can’t find yours, select “Not Found” at the bottom.”

How to Get Access to ESPN3.com
ESPN3.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN3.com affiliated internet service provider. ESPN3.com is also available to fans that access the internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases.

Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Hereâ€™s how you can get access to ESPN3.com.

Please select your internet service provider from the list. If you can’t find yours, select “Not Found” at the bottom.

I got an answer from ESPN regarding why its not available yet, and for the persons who were asking about Brighthouse.

“Hello,

Thank you for contacting us.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. A deal is in place for Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks video subscribers to receive ESPN3.com. We are currently working out the details and plan to launch as soon as possible during the College Football Season.

Please keep an eye out for messaging from Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks as to when this new service will be made available in your area.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We hope you continue to enjoy the wide variety of programming offered by our networks.

For live assistance with any other issue, please call Customer Care at 1-888-549-3776 (ESPN) between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. EST.